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Google Earth in the Homeschool Part 1 ~ Guest Post

Google Earth in the Homeschool

Part I

By Andy Harris

Homeschool
families are constantly looking for great tools to help make learning come
alive. Every once in a while, a tool with remarkable potential comes along. Google
Earth is a very interesting atlas, but it is capable of much more than
basic geography. Learn how you can use this powerful free tool to explore
shipwrecks, follow weather patterns in real time, watch wild animals in Africa,
explore ancient Rome, and fly over your neighborhood in a jet aircraft.

Google Earth is a
free application available atearth.google.com. The application is available for all
major operating systems and is absolutely free. (There is a professional
version you can purchase, but everything I describe in this article refers to
the free version.) As of this writing, Google Earth 6.0 is the most recent
version; please get that version to enjoy all the examples.

You do not need
an exceptionally powerful computer to run Google Earth, but some features (3D
buildings and the flight simulator, for example) take advantage of powerful newer
machines when they are available. You will need an active Internet connection,
as the image data is pulled from the Internet as needed.

As I describe
Google Earth throughout this article, you should really get in front of your
computer and play along. It’s great to explore these features with your family,
as you will all be amazed at what you can do together.

Basic Navigation

Basic usage of
Google Earth is relatively simple. It’s just a virtual globe. When you start
the program, you’ll see the earth in a large central panel. Drag the mouse to
spin the globe. If you have a wheel on your mouse, you can use it to zoom
closer or farther away. You can zoom all the way down to your street and look
at your house! (More on street view in a moment.) While navigating in the main
window, you can press the middle mouse button to change your rotation.

The main screen
has three primary controls on it. Use the top control (with the eyeball) to
rotate your view. You can also drag the “N” to change the overall orientation
if you get confused. The middle controller (with a hand on it) controls the
rotation as well. Personally, I do not use this control scheme, as it’s more
natural to simply grab and rotate the globe itself, which works in the same
way. The bottom controller, which looks like a scroll bar, allows you to adjust
the zoom. When you’re zoomed in closely, you’ll sometimes also see a little
human figure icon, which you can use to enable ground level or street view for
the current location.

You may see
various icons on the map. You can usually double-click an icon to get more
information about whatever you’re looking at. Often in a very detailed area
(like a city) you’ll see various objects or buildings highlighted in blue when
your mouse is hovering over them. If this happens, you can click on the item to
get a popup window explaining what the item is, with links to web pages that
can provide additional information.

Just looking
around the globe this way is amazing. You can locate islands, towns, and even
individual buildings. Depending on the settings, you can have Google Earth
display all kinds of features, but first, let’s explore the ground view.

Ground Level and
Street View

Note that if you
zoom in very closely, you go to a ground-level view, which shows the view as if
you’re standing at that spot. Ground-level view shows the general landscape.
There’s often a button on the screen that allows you to switch between
ground-level view and something called “street view.”

Street view shows
actual panoramic photos of your current area. (I can tell it’s really my house,
because the street view shows our van door wide open.) Street view is not
available in all parts of the world, by the way. You can drag the mouse to
change your viewpoint and double-click anywhere on the screen within street
view to move the viewpoint to a new spot. If you’re pointing down a street, you
can use the mouse wheel to “drive” down the street. Use the “exit ground-level
view” or “exit street view” button (the button text changes depending on the
current mode) to return to the normal globe mode.

There are many
fun ways to use street view. It might be fun to view your current house with
your children but also to explore other places that are important to your
family. During childhood, I moved many times, and I never got to show my kids
where I grew up, but with Google Earth, I can show them the houses I lived
in—even when I lived overseas! You can also use this mode to preview areas
you’re planning to visit or to see famous places you read about or hear about
in the news.

Street view is
most useful in urban areas, as the coverage is more complete. Ground-level view
is more interesting when you’re looking at interesting geography, such as the
Grand Canyon or a volcano.

Exploring the
Sidebar

Depending on your
settings, you may have a sidebar to the left of your primary screen. If it is
not visible, click on the left-most icon or choose Sidebar from the View menu.
The sidebar opens a whole new world of opportunities.

The most
immediately useful tool is the search box. Using the Fly To tab, you can go
from wherever you are to any place in the world. Type in “Tokyo, Japan” or
“Grand Canyon” to enjoy some examples. You can use the other tabs to find a
business (in a flagrant nod to advertisers, I suspect) or use the Directions
tab to get a set of directions from anywhere in the world to anywhere else.
Although you’ve probably seen this before, the Google Earth version has a fun
bonus feature: you can click on each of the instructions and fly from one point
to the next, seeing exactly what each turn looks like.

Managing Places

You can mark
places that are of interest to you and view them again later. To mark a place,
move the view so you are looking at the place of interest (say, your house).
Use the Placemark button on the Add menu to add a new pin to your map. You can
add a name to your placemark and also change how it appears. Your new place
will now appear in the Places section under My Places. You can then
double-click on your place name from anywhere in the world to get to your place
immediately.

You’ll also see
some great places to view in the Sightseeing tour available under Places.
Expand the Sightseeing Tour menu and double-click on Start Tour Here. You’ll be
transported to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Wait a few moments for all the
scenery to pop into view. Things may look fuzzy at first, but be patient, and
you’ll see the Eiffel Tower and the Seine River. (You’ll need 3D buildings
turned on for the full effect. It should be on by default, but if not, be sure
to read the Layers section in Part 2 of this article for tips on how to turn it
on.) Feel free to move around and look around the city. There’s plenty to see.

A new control
panel will appear on the screen. Hit the Play button, and you’ll fly to the
next point of interest (which is the famous “Christ Redeemer” statue in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil). Go through the tour and you’ll see several of the most
interesting places in the virtual (and real) world, including the Grand Canyon,
Mount Fuji, and even the wreck of the Titanic at the bottom of the
ocean!

If you like, you
can record your own tour. Simply use the Tour item from the Add menu. This pops
up a little recording box. Hit the record button, and the application will
record your motions. Press the microphone button to record your voice
explaining your tour. When you’re done with a recording, you can play it back
and use the Save icon to save the recording. Your tour will now be listed under
My Places. This can be a great way to record things such as historical paths,
family moves, and other multi-site activities.

And Much More
Next Month

It’s hard to
believe that Google Earth can do more than this, but we’re literally scratching
the surface here. Come back next month and I’ll show how to do much more with
this great tool. Here are some things to look forward to:

• Working with
layers to see oceans, weather, and fascinating third-party content

• Going back in
time to see how cities have changed

• Going to the
moon, Mars, and the stars

• Flying a jet
plane around the terrain

• Constructing
your own 3D building models

• Exploring the
Google Earth plugin for more fun

Check out the
accompanying videos for a few examples of the fun you can have!

Andy Harris is a
homeschool dad, father of four great kids, and husband to the greatest
homeschool teacher ever. He has taught all ages of students, from kindergarten
to university level. Andy is the author of a number of well-known books,
including HTML/XHTML/CSS: All in One
for Dummies, Game Programming--The L Line, PHP6/MySQL Programming for the
Absolute Beginner, and Beginning Flash Game Programming for Dummies. For
more information about his books, to see where he is speaking next, or to just
say hi, please stop by his web site: www.aharrisbooks.net.

Copyright
2012, used with permission. All rights reserved by author. Originally appeared
in the January 2012 issue of The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, the trade
magazine for homeschool families. Read the magazine free atwww.TOSMagazine.com or read it on the go and download the
freeTOSapps to read the magazine on your Kindle Fire
or Apple or Android devices.

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